Monday, April 27, 2015

This interview has been a long time in the making, but today THE
FREE CHOICE E-ZINE is proud to welcome author Nancy A. Hansen to
our humble chat room. Let's start by telling us a bit about your
latest work.

Author Hansen

NANCY
HANSEN: I've had two recent releases, a short story within a multi-author anthology and a novel. Both are from Pro Se Press
(http://prose-press.com/).

The
first was my story in MONSTER ACES VOLUME 2, “The Swarming”.
The premise for the anthology is that a diverse team of specialists
in the late 1930s-mid 1940s hunts down and eliminates dangerous
beings and creatures that threaten humanity. My story takes the team
up to rural New Hampshire to investigate a series of sightings and
potential deaths that revolve around contact with strange children
who have solid black eyes. What they find is a hive of something
rather hideous that needs to be completely eradicated before these
recently evolved creatures can spread into far more populated areas.
If you are bug-phobic, this one is going to give you nightmares! The
cover art is not for my story, but it's another awesome job by artist
Jeff Hayes.

MONSTER ACES did have a Volume One. Jim Beard, a very talented guy, is listed
as the creator, and he's naturally a contributing writer as well.
It's a fun concept, with a great group of personalities. I worked with Jim before on the first volume of his MONSTER EARTH anthology series, so I was
honored to be asked to be part of the second volume.

The
other recent release was the third novel in the GREENWOOD
CYCLE that began with FORTUNE'S PAWN and
continued in PROPHECY'S GAMBIT. MASTER'SENDGAME
follows the continuing story of everyone's favorite red haired
barmaid, Callie, as well as all the subplots that revolve around her.
For those of you who know the series, yes you will find out all the
details about Callie's child, and what happens to your other favorite
characters too. Lots of stuff going on in this one. This book is part
of my Pro Se Imprint, HANSEN'S WAY.

TFCE:
Now, we like the fact that
while you're concluding a trilogy with MASTER'S ENDGAME,
each volume is also a complete story.

NANCY:
That was intentional, because while
there are story threads that run through all three books, each is a
novel unto itself.
That way the readers
have a complete adventure, yet are left wanting more.

Now
as far as MASTER'S ENDGAME, not only is it part of a series,
but everything in HANSEN'S WAY is interrelated in that
all the books and anthologies take place in the same epic/heroic high
fantasy world. These series all have different times and settings,
but you will find some crossover characters and team-ups as time goes
on. I actually have 5 separate series planned, with 3 of them having
debuted already. Besides the GREENWOOD
CYCLE, I have previously published (all with Pro Se) the first
installments of TALES OF THE VAGABOND BARDS, THE WINDRIDERS OF EVERICE, and THE HUNTRESS OF GREENWOOD. (The latter is
technically part of the GREENWOOD CYCLE, though not tied into the
current series until farther along in time). All of those are short
stories collected into anthologies. Waiting in the wings for a
publication date is the first novel of THE SUDARNIAN
CHRONICLES—FORGED BY FLAME.
And currently I'm putting together an anthology titled BY
THE WAYSIDE TALES. This series
will follow the travels of two fugitive characters from the
last VAGABOND BARDS short story whom I just could not let go of.

TFCE:
How did all of this come about?

NANCY:
Many of the imprint stories were started back in the late 80s/early
90s, when my sons were very young and I was a stay-at-home-mom,
taking correspondence courses in writing. Some of them date to the
late 90s when I was a volunteer moderator for PRODIGY INTERNET'S
BOOKS & WRITING BULLETIN BOARD, which I did for several years. I
kept files going from PCs to laptops, and have moved them via the
various file saving methods we've used over the years. All of them
come out of my deep and abiding love for the stories that enthralled
me as a kid and young adult. In fact, the seminal novel that got
split into the GREENWOOD CYCLE's first three novels was an 850 page
behemoth that I could not interest any publisher in. For Pro Se, I
split it up and then rewrote each section to be complete in itself,
ramping up the action and adventure while keeping the core story
intact and all the myriad characters in place. I think it's a far
better concept, and I'm proud of
what it's become.

TFCE:
Sounds like you've been quite busy. What else of yours has either
been recently released or is pending release?

NANCY:
Besides Pro Se having my
first SUDARNIAN CHRONICLES novel that is supposed to be out
sometime this year, I've also turned in a third THE KEENER EYE
short story for Pro Se's SINGLE SHOT E-series. I had
done two Keener Eye stories previously for the Pro Se
Magazine, PRO SE PRESENTS, which is no longer being
published. This was my first foray into the PI genre, on a prompt and
a dare from Pro Se's E-I-C, Tommy Hancock. It's set here in my home
state of Connecticut, in our modern age of cell phones and all sorts
of electronic gadgetry. I've heard it opined that you can't write a
PI series set in this
technology-savvy age, but I took that as a challenge too. It's
been interesting to write, and the feedback has been pretty positive.
No idea when that one will be out.

I
will also have a short story in the upcoming Pro Se
steampunk/superhero anthology, SINGULARITY: RISE OF THE
POST-HUMANS. That was a concept created and pitched to a group of
us by Mr. Jaime Ramos, and it's been enthusiastically put together,
and now has a publisher backing it. Great bunch of folks involved,
and we're all very honored to share space with the uber-talented
comic writing legend, Mr. David Michelinie. Have no idea if we will
see it this year or next, but it is pending.

Also
due sometime this year is the third installment in COMPANION
DRAGONS TALES, a children's series I do for Pro Se's YOUNG
PULP imprint. Actually I share the series with two
co-authors, Mr. Lee Houston Jr. (yeah, the guy who oversees this
blog) and Roger Stegman. Joining Lazlo & Waxy Dragon in having
their own origin stories told (A FAMILIAR NAME & FINDING WAXY),
Copper Dragon debuts in COPPER'S CHOICE. Like Lazlo, Copper is 100%
my creation, though we share a world created by the three authors
involved in the series. These are fun stories; full of magic,
zaniness, adventure, and all the bad puns you can groan at. We've
tried to make the series something that children can share with the
adults who love them. Some of the most ardent CDT fans are grownup
kids.

Now,
Pro Se isn't the only publisher I deal with. Last year I pitched an
idea for a pirate series to Ron Fortier of Airship 27
(http://www.airship27.com/).
I told Ron my plan was to make
these buccaneer tales action fiction with a historical
backdrop. The main character is
a young, mixed-race woman who, disguised as a boy, signs
herself aboard a pirate ship to follow the man she has fallen in love
with. Ron, unbeknownst to me, is a huge pirate story fan, and he was
very enthusiastic about the project from day one. The first novel in
that series: JEZEBEL JOHNSTON—DEVIL'S HANDMAID, should be
out sometime this summer, I am told.

Notice
that this is a series. I have at least five books planned for
it. This is an idea I'd been kicking around for a couple years, and
it just became right place/right time to
work on it last year. I was pretty well caught up with all my other
writing deadlines, and had started sketching out the character
and researching the material I'd needed when I made my proposal.

I
also turned in a rather long short story for A27's SINBAD-THE NEW VOYAGES series, which features multi-author anthologies as well as at
least one novel that I know of. It is a captivating series with an
eclectic cast of characters and a great Ray Harryhausen feel to it. I
loved those old stop-motion movies with all the mythological monsters
and beings, so I was thrilled to be on the ground floor of it, with a
short story in the first release. I have been champing at the bit to
do another one. No idea when my new tale, SINBAD IN THE LAND OF FIRE
AND ICE will be out, because there are already four volumes in print
and more planned.

I
should also mention that fellow author and Prodigy Internet refugee
Lee Houston Jr. (yeah, him again) and I have co-written a TALES OF
THE HANGING MONKEY story for A27 as well. Not sure when that one will
be out, but it was a lot of fun working together, and we managed not
to kill each other in the process, LOL! Lee put such an ironic Easter
Egg twist at the end of that story, I didn't even see it coming.
You're going to love it.

TFCE:
How do you manage to keep track
of, let alone find the time for everything?

NANCY:
Even with my great love of reading and writing, it isn't easy. Life
handed me a velvet monkey-wrench, in that my DDIL got a chance to get
off third shift and onto a day shift, but would need a daytime
babysitter for my five month old grandson. I can't say no to that
little man, so I went from being an empty nester with a laid-back
schedule, to part-time and eventually full time diaper changer and
bottle washer. Writing had to get squeezed in when and where I could
manage; before and after the little guy arrived for the day or
escorted mommy home, or during naps and the occasional day off. I had
also planned and planted this huge garden. So the juggling act can be
difficult at times.

Taking
on JEZEBEL JOHNSTON on top of my other projects, I now had a new book
commitment, with a far bigger learning curve involved than I had ever
anticipated, and barely any time to work on it.

I've
always loved pirate stories and movies, but I had never tried writing
one before. I based most of it in the Caribbean, in the beginning of the golden age of buccaneering. I wanted the setting to be authentic and the characters to ring true. As I began reading up on the background material I needed to
know for the book, I realized how little I understood about pirates.
In my research I began to understand the social/political climate
behind the Caribbean colonies pirates preyed upon, and that there was
an overwhelming amount of the sailing terms and ship details I knew
nothing about. All through that research there was an abundance of
ideas and concepts, terms and background history, bouncing around in
my head. I felt I'd taken on far too much of a project most days,
because I was often doing more reading than writing. But I kept
picking away at it, and over the months, I found myself understanding
increasingly more of what made that seafaring era so intense, as well
as what some of those strange words I kept stumbling across actually
meant. It was like learning an entire new language from a world I had
never even visited. Most days I was lucky to get over 150 words
on a page.

It
took me 5 days short of nine months to give birth to that novel. I
started in February, and I turned it in right around Thanksgiving.
That it was embraced so ardently was absolutely thrilling to me,
because I had been ready to give up and chuck it aside a dozen times.
I dreamed about it at night, and I saw pirates leering at me
everywhere I went. But in the end, it got done, and done right.
That's a pretty awesome feeling.

Oh,
and while I was working on that book, DDIL found out she was pregnant
with another grandbaby; a girl
this time. The little lady was born right before Thanksgiving too. It
was quite a productive year, and now I babysit both of them, but am
still managing to write, including the Jezebel Johnston sequel novel.

TFCE:
Why do you write what you do?

NANCY:
That's an easy answer—I love what I'm doing. I try and write the
kinds of stories I would enjoy reading.
Whenever I get fan feedback, I know instantly what I'm doing right
and wrong. I may never have a New York Times Bestseller, or see Peter
Jackson direct a movie based on one of my novels, but I've
accomplished something I set out to do 26 years ago. I've got
multiple books in print, and people are reading them and finding them
entertaining. That's the best reason of all.

TFCE:
What inspires you to write?

NANCY:
I have stories to tell, ideas to get across, things to say. In this
day and age, when social media is everyone's bully pulpit, and we're
all just a cellphone cam or drone pic between anonymity and world
exposure, I prefer to go someplace where I can shut out the world and
inhabit one I have some control over. I'm a creative person at heart.
I cook, I sing, I garden, I craft things... but writing best helps me
express those ideas and feelings that are
so deep within. Nothing else can bring them out as well. I take
things from the everyday world that move me, try and find a way to
turn them upside down and inside out, and put them in a story. I can
vicariously live lives I would never dare dream of and experience
things I haven't got the guts to try. If I want to be evil and nasty,
I write a good juicy villainous scene. If I'm lonesome and feeling
ugly and unwanted, I can create a love scene to make you sigh. I get
to do things in a story that in the real world I'd get arrested for
and be locked up. Writing is a great place to make heroic
characters out of people you admire, or take out your frustrations
and kill all those annoying dolts who make the world miserable. And
you get to do it in your pajamas, with pepperoni pizza breath, and
uncombed hair. Sure beats the snot of most of the jobs I used to
have!

TFCE:
What has influenced your style and technique?

NANCY:
I could list you a whole bunch of books and short stories, along with
some movies, TV series, poems, and the occasional song, but that
would only be part of the equation. I have authors I admire, and I
work somewhat in the tradition of the old Pulp stories, which were
plot driven and packed with action. Yet I have to admit, I straddle
the line between mainstream fiction
story telling and that fast-paced action adventure that made
Pulp so popular. At the core, I still write the kinds of things I'd
enjoy reading. I might borrow an idea here and there, but I'm doing
it my way.

TFCE:
What would be your dream project?

NANCY:
The only thing that comes to mind is watching a book or series
capture the heart and soul of a mainstream audience, and then having
it made into either a movie or a premium cable series. I know there
is some danger in that things will get changed so that it's not
recognizable as your own work, but I'd find it fascinating to see who
gets to play Callie, or Kendahl, Jezebel Johnston, or even Kate
Keener, and how the story arcs would be carried out.

You
notice I didn't mention working on someone else's concept or
properties? I've certainly done that to
some extent, and will continue to do so as long as I'm welcomed to;
but I'm primarily a creative maverick who likes to work on her own stuff.
There is no difference in the quality of what I write, whether it is
working with someone else's character(s) in a pre-determined world,
or all original material that falls out of my head onto the page.
Whenever I sit down to write, I try and give you the best
possible story I can. I just have the most fun making things up from
scratch.

Oh
yeah, and my big pipe dream includes having household staff to handle
housework and cooking; a
personal assistant to answer the phone, keep my schedule straight,
and deal with all the self-promotion stuff I dread, and yard
help to mow, pull weeds, and clean up after me when I'm puttering
around my garden. Wouldn't that be lovely?

TFCE:
Where do you foresee yourself within the next few years?

NANCY:
Exactly what I am doing right now, with hopefully more time
allocated to the creative endeavors, and less on the mundane stuff.
I'd like enough freedom to do all the things I love, and spend
quality time with family without feeling guilty about what I can't
get to. Life is short, so you want to have as much fun as you can
pack in, and still spend it with loved ones and doing things that
matter. Hopefully at some point I will get to the stage where
I'll be able to support myself writing, and actually contribute
financially to the household budget.

TFCE:
As
an author, how would
you describe any contact you've had so far with readers/fans?

NANCY:
Very positive! In fact, I would love to
thank the people who have bought my books, enjoyed them, and have
taken the time to tell me so. Or even if someone didn't like
something, but politely and tactfully told me why. You have no idea
how vital that kind of feedback is! My readers are the audience, and
they're the reason I'm writing, so I want their voices to be heard.
I've chatted with some of them online or in person, and nothing
tickles me more than to have someone ask about a specific character
as if it was a relative or friend of mine that I had mentioned
a while back. I've had people tell me something I wrote moved them,
or made them afraid of some inner dark place I took them to. That's
how I know I've been effective, and that I must to keep doing what I
am doing.

Please
folks, if you really have strong feelings about something I've
written, I want to know that. This is a lonely business and sometimes
you wonder if you're wasting your time banging on the keyboard while
laundry goes unwashed, meals don't get cooked, and you could be
earning a lot more money as a door greeter
at Walmart. I'm not in a financial or personal position right now
where I can go out to conventions and meet you in person. I don't
have big book signings and author meet & greet dates. You won't
find my books on the shelves in your local brick & mortar store,
or in your local library. Heck, even if Oprah still had her show, I
doubt she'd have me on there to talk about what I'm writing and why,
because I'm not trying to change
the world as much as entertain it. The only way things like
that can happen to me is for there to be a grass roots buzzing by
fans recommending whatever of mine they've read to other potential
fans. So every time you suggest someone reads one of my books or
stories and they do, you put another little ripple with my name on it
into the big ocean of Indie Authors. Eventually, that might become a
tidal wave of support, and that's when I can justify the travel time
and expenses.

You
all do that for me, and I'll keep writing for you, and we'll
all be a lot happier.

TFCE:
Any other projects you would like to promote?

NANCY:
I always have projects going, and stuff on the back burner, but I don't currently have anything exciting to report, other than I am working on several potential 2016 releases. I do write for my little rural town's monthly newsletter, mostly about being a country dweller and what we face out here in terms of rural small town life. That's a gift from me to the
community I became part of back in May 2011, when we bought this old
farm, with a house built in 1770. Feedback has been pretty good on
that. I still do some editing, but I've had to cut way down on that
because there just aren't enough hours in the day for me, and I have
made writing my priority. I have at times spoken to children in
school systems about the importance of writing, and I've worked with
adult writers who just need a bit of guidance and reassurance. I love
to talk about what I do, and to de-mystify just what makes a story
work, because I'm very passionate about it. I do have a couple of
writing blogs that I really should update far more often
(http://nancyahansen.blogspot.com/ &
http://magicdragonverse.blogspot.com/). I'm also on Facebook and G+
regularly. And yeah, I use my actual name.

In
this time of entertainment delivered by electronic gizmos, it's so
very important to be able to express yourself in a way that is both
engaging and easy to understand, because you're competing with so
much else that has people's attention. I spend a lot of time going
over the things I write to make sure they are the very best I can
make them. While I'm sure there must be story-planning apps out
there, writing is one of the few craft areas where no matter how you
make it happen, or how it gets presented, you have to actually sit
down and put the thing together by hand. I can't digitally paint a
story, or Photoshop it from
images found online. There's no 3 minute microwave version, nor GPS to
talk me through from start to finish. I doubt a book would be
very interesting in text shorthand, and I have yet to see one
composed in synthesized notes. The CGI-only version still needs a
script to follow. You might be able to print my books on demand by
pushing buttons on a machine, but I had to sit down and write them
first. Doesn't matter if it's by pen on paper, or keystrokes showing
up on a screen, because the contents came out of my head. We writers
are kind of the last bastion of manual creators, and I like that
idea. As I said, I'm a creative maverick.

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